Education Commons^™

Creating Learning Environments To Support Students Experiencing Stress: Qualitative Insights From An Extension-Community Partnership, Chelsea Hetherington, Sarah Cronin, Sara Langworthy, Cari Michaels

Journal of Human Sciences and Extension

For children experiencing chronic stress, succeeding academically in the face of other obstacles can be daunting. Many efforts focused on supporting students fail to address nonacademic aspects of well-being that can impact their ability to succeed. Working to bridge the gap between research and practice, here we describe the results of an Extension-Community partnership that sought to design learning environments to support elementary students’ healthy bodies and minds. Project leaders took an ecological systems approach, intervening with students at a local elementary school across multiple contexts. This entailed creating a calming room in the school, building a community garden on …